Beyond the Light
by Untapped
Summary: In a Galaxy burdened with the corrupt Senate and the obsolete Jedi Order, the wise know that true power and knowledge belong only to the Sith. Enemies surround them on all sides, and the wounds of the past have yet to heal. What destiny awaits those who walk the fine line between absolute power and oblivion?


If you asked the lay person to find a secretive place on Coruscant, they might direct you to a ruined, abandoned industrial district. An empty alleyway at night, a secluded apartment. A place where you could find something that, on a world where probe droids collected gossip while drifting like so many snowflakes on the wind, where the bustle and noise of the city extended upwards into the sky and down into the depths of the soil, the rarest of all resources: Privacy.

The man who called himself Oruu Tava wasn't so foolish. He knew that such places were like black holes, and that secretive actions drew unsavory attention. He had no desire to be beyond reach - in fact, being within the reach of his enemies held a certain thrill to him. No, he wanted to be beyond blame. And to that end, a crowded cantina thirty-something levels down from the surface would be more than enough. The colorful lights of the seedy place's dance floor gave the blue-skinned Nautolan a strange, ethereal look. The tentacled alien, scarred and muscular wasn't just something from outside the world, but instead outside space and reason. He was dressed smartly, in a conservative tunic.

His contact, a bloated Twi'lek, fat from a reaped harvest of ill-earned rewards, noticed that the crowd seemed to part for him unconsciously. He never needed to push anyone aside or step around anyone. He walked towards him like a ship smoothly sailing along stormy seas. The fattened mobster couldn't bring himself to meet his superior's intense gaze.

"Minister." the green creature said, stroking a lekku nervously. "What an, um, unexpected delight."

Oruu smiled. "I'm not a minister of anything down here." he said, sitting in a cushy booth. "I'm only Mr. Tava - nothing else." He steepled his fingers, sitting across from the criminal, and each one internally reflected on their disdain for the other.

"If I may ask -"

"I hate to dash your hopes," the Nautolan said with a smug smile on his face, "But you don't need to ask why I'm here. I came for the exact reason you think I did, which is most unfortunate. Now then, do you care to explain yourself to me?"

"Minis - Mr. Tava, sir, you have to understand that it's not my fault! It's this bunch of upstarts, hijacking my shipments, killing my men!" All of this was said so fast that the speaker was breathing hard by the end of this.

Oruu let out a long-suffering sigh, and spoke like a disappointed parent chastising an misbehaving child. "I provided you with considerable funding to ensure that you could deal with any difficulties you encountered." The sputtering crime lord opened his mouth, but the Nautolan gestured for him to remain silent. "You promised me that you could control the artifact trade of this wretched planet's underground. For a brief while, you succeeded. But I have no reason to believe that you can after these events."

The Twi'lek grew desparate. "You don't understand. This new gang, its leader -" Oruu looked at the green man with contempt. "He can, well, he can use -"

"Spit it out, you worm." Rather than reply, the contact pressed a button on his wristband. A flickering blue image was projected between them, a shaky clip of video. A struggle between three Weequay and a human. The human fought with all the ferocity of a man cornered, doing his best to ward off three attackers at once. Gradually, he was being pushed backwards to a ledge, pushed against the handrail. It was at the moment of certain death that the world went mad - what seemed an explosion without smoke or fire, hurling all enemies backwards into steel buildings, leaving them with cracked skulls and chests torn concave. For a few instants that must have seemed in the heat of the moment to be an eternity, the young man was at the center of a storm.

"Jedi powers." The greasy alien said. "He never did that before, but..." He looked up to his employer, expecting surprise or mercy. Anything, some small solace. He found none.

"Someone on the homeworld of the Order..." Oruu whispered to himself. "Strong in the Force, yet not found, most likely by virtue of his low birth..."

"Mr. Tava?" The Nautolan looked up at the person he almost had forgot was there.

"I must thank you for showing me that. It is useful information." Oruu said. "Still, it doesn't atone for your persistent failure. You have for months abused my aid, never expecting for me to call in my debt. Some inside your power structure still remember where their loyalty lies, however." Reaching across the table, the blue-skinned figure tapped a button on his minion's device, and his ally's credit account flickered into view. It was emptied of all the funds he had connived, stolen, and embezzled from 'Minister Tava', and all the rest for good measure.

"Know in your last moments, that you were never important. That, in the grand scheme of things, you were inconsequential. And now, the time has come for your debt to be _paid_." He gave the last word a venomous stress, and allowed anger to darken his face - briefly.

Gathering himself, the man whose name was not, in fact, Oruu Tava moved to leave. The Twi'lek tried to make a noise, to call for help or pry away the invisible hands from his throat. Nothing availed him, and there was no final comfort. In the end, there was only darkness.


End file.
